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NYPD ‘jihad’ film a vital anti-terror tool

One way to eradicate radical Islam is to keep a relentless spotlight on it and support law enforcement in its diligence to thwart terror attacks, 44 of which have been foiled against the U.S. since 9/11 — a miraculous feat considering it takes just one to create havoc.

Last month, FBI agents averted a potential disaster by arresting a Yugoslavian Muslim and naturalized U.S. citizen as he was about to bomb a bar in Florida because he wanted to “die the Islamic way.” But don’t expect Muslim American activists to rejoice over our counter-terrorism successes. They increased the whine volume last week after the New York Times ran a series of articles blaming the NYPD for using the documentary “The Third Jihad: Radical Islam’s Vision for America” in its anti-terrorism training.

The movie is a vital tool in our intelligence arsenal because it explores the existence of radical Islam in America, and exposes its risk to our security, our liberties and our way of life. It’s a must-see for another compelling reasons: it was created by Mohamed Zuhdi Jasser, the Muslim founder of the American Islamic Forum for Democracy who served as a lieutenant commander in the U.S. Navy and testified at a 2011 congressional hearing, “The course of Muslim radicalization in the U.S. over the past two years makes it exceedingly difficult for anyone to assert with a straight face that in America we Muslims do not have a radicalization problem.”

Now, anarchists from the Muslim American Civil Liberties Coalition for Truth and Justice, and the Council on American Islamic Relations — the same group that federal authorities linked to Hamas terrorists in three separate 2007 court filings — want NYPD Commissioner Ray Kelly and Deputy Commissioner Paul Browne fired for helping to expose the omnipresent dangers posed by Islam’s fundamentalists. Their knee-jerk reaction is as extreme as any jihadist’s, and more disturbing because Muslim cooperation is vital to winning the war on terror — a fact recognized in the movie which begins, “This is not a film about Islam. It is about the threat of radical Islam. Only a small percentage of the world’s 1.4 billion Muslims are radical.” Nobody should have a problem with that, except our sworn enemies.

The film opens with the 2004 Beslan hostage crises in post-Soviet Russia where Muslim radicals killed more than 380 people, most of them children. Jasser, also the narrator, moves swiftly to 9-11, commenting with refreshing candor, “I had expected to see Muslims in America taking to the streets and protesting against Bin Laden, instead in the years that followed, we saw many Muslim leaders standing up to defend or support the radicals.” How true.

“The Third Jihad” goes to great lengths to distinguish peaceful Muslims from radical ones, but the distinction was ignored by the Muslims who rallied outside City Hall last week for Kelly’s removal in a show of disrespect that wouldn’t be tolerated in their ancestral lands. If Muslim Americans were half as indignant over atrocities committed in Islamic nations — including 5,000 honor killings each year and the unchecked persecution of Jews and Christians — they might realize that “The Third Jihad” is a crime-fighting essential that protects decent people in the world’s most decent country.

Sabruzzo@cnglocal.com

Shavana Abruzzo's column appears every Friday on BrooklynDaily.com. E-mail her at sabruzzo@cnglocal.com.